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#HerFutureAfrica Finalists awarded by iSpace

· womenempowerment,Entrepreneurship,Innovation

iSpace and #HerFutureAfrica are excited to partner in supporting young female entrepreneurs in Ghana.

#HerFutureAfrica is an idea to startup accelerator providing training and mentorship to support African female entrepreneurs in launching innovative businesses that help to improve the lives of women and girls.

In January the programme saw 32 women entrepreneurs who were selected from over 470 applicants, attend a 2-day Business Innovation bootcamp hosted at iSpace.

During the bootcamp, participants were introduced to essential business innovation tools such as the Human Centred Design, Business Model Canvas and Lean Startup methodogy as well as connected to successful role models and taught how to pitch.

Following the bootcamp, participants where then tasked with carrying out market research to validate their business model supported by a group of international mentors from 10 countries. They then had to submit project proposals from which 10 finalists were selected to pitch at a Demo Day.

Held on international women’s day on 8th March, the #HerFutureAfrica demo day was a colourful occasion which brought together members of the startup ecosystem in Accra to support and watch the finalists pitch the business ideas.

Josiah Eyison, iSpace founder & CEO was one of the esteemed panel of judges and shared key words of the advice with participants.

The demo day also saw Angela Mensah-Poku, Enterprise Director at Vodafone give a keynote sharing her tips for succeeding as a female leader in technology and business.

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After a series of action-packed and exhilarating pitches from the top 10 finalists, the winner emerged as Tamara Frimpong-Armah with her startup Addendum Toys.

The runner up was Ivy Barley of Developers in Vogue who has now also gone on to win at eSkills4girls and Ghana Youth Social entrepreneurship competitions.

At the end of the day, all the 10 finalists were winners as iSpace Ghana awarded each of them with a support package which will include $500, Domain and Business Registration, co-working desk space as well as Tech and Business Support for 6 Months

We are excited by this partnership and look forward to seeing the impact that the #HerFutureAfrica participants will go on to create through their business.